With a yearly increase in burn patients, it is essential to develop organized medical delivery systems for burn patients and materials for professional burn treatment, and secure medical facilities so as to reduce mortality caused by burns and minimize the financial and social loss caused by aftereffects of burns.
At present, however, burns are still classified into first to third degree burns according to visible and clinical aspects. For professional burn treatment, it is necessary to diagnose and classify burns in an accurate and detailed manner. This method forms the basis of research on developing specialized therapeutic methods so that the therapeutic methods can vary according to the extent or position of a burn.
As a method used to diagnose burns, Korean Registered Patent No. 10-0596703 discloses an apparatus for making a standardized model of burn wounds, which aids in accurate diagnosis and treatment of burns according to the extent or position of a burn by applying a proper level of heat to the skin of a subject so as to check an extent of burn injury.
Thermal damage of tissues starts when heat is transferred from any of various heat sources to the tissues. The heat transfer to such tissues is the first step of burning, and is a basic principle used to describe various kinds of burn characteristics and develop burn protection equipment or weapons. However, the heat transfer to such tissues is not visible to the naked eye, and there is no way to intuitively and easily measure the heat transfer. Thus, experiments conducted on animals, or simulation methods using physical and mathematical methods have been used as described above. These methods have a problem in that they are simulated using special programs depending on complicated mathematical formulas.